Retreat – September 2022 – part 3 – light and shadows

I dragged myself to the morning devotion on the third day of our retreat. It had been a shocking night.

Cauliflower. Too much cauliflower was the problem. Okay, so the root cause is my pathetic gut, which freaks out if it encounters more than a little mannitol … and a whole lot of other things. Covid considerations mean that there are no common serving implements. Everything is plated up for us. Although I had asked for gluten free meals, I hadn’t said anything about cauliflower. I have a new enzyme powder which I add to potential ‘trigger foods’ and that is helping for some things … but it doesn’t work for mannitol, I now realise. And mannitol is the culprit in cauliflower.

I hate being flawed. I try to pretend to be ‘normal’ sometimes, but it usually backfires. Like last night.

Life isn’t all hunky dory

‘Light and shadows’ was the theme for the day. At the time, the point that made the deepest impression on me was this: we shouldn’t expect life to be all hunky dory. I blogged about that in November when writing up an overview of the whole trip ( https://aussie-rambling-rose.com/2022/11/19/light-and-shadows-travel/ ).

As I prepared this blog post, however, looking again at my photos from the retreat, re-reading my journal entry for the day and meditating on particular Scriptures related to light and shadows, I was reminded of a few more insights. These are what I shall share below.

Light

The Bible has a lot to say about light. And darkness, actually.

I could write a l-o-n-g essay on the various ways that ‘light’ is portrayed in the Bible, but won’t. I’ll just focus on one aspect.

 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:5-10 NIV

When it comes to photography, bright light is harsh. Imperfections are revealed. Nothing is hidden. And so it is with God. When I ‘walk in the light’, nothing is hidden. All my imperfections are revealed.

I like to pretend to be ‘flawless’ in digestive matters as well as in character and behaviour. But the truth is that I am not. The cauliflower catastrophe had reminded me afresh of certain physical imperfections, at least. ‘Walking in the light of God’ does not mean ‘being perfect’.

Of course we are slowly but surely being sanctified, and there is no excuse for intentionally continuing to sin. We are called to frequent confession in the passage above. ‘Walking in the light of God’ means acknowledging our imperfections and flaws, and throwing ourselves time after time upon the mercy of God.

Living under the penetrating light of God impacts my relationships with other fellow ‘walkers in the light’ too. When we are open and vulnerable with one another, our relationships deepen. Not that we should focus on our flaws all day every day. Our focus is on our Lord and Saviour as we muddle through life together in community. We do not pretend that we ‘have it all together’ but we support one another.

A photography tip

I learnt a few tricks with the phone-camera that day too in which certain aspects of light and shadows are emphasised. We were encouraged to try shooting in black-and-white, since that removes the distraction of colour and emphasises other facts of the picture, such as shapes, lines, textures and composition.

The photograph above is obviously of a tree that has fallen over. Do you think that the use of black-and-white emphasises the lines in those poor exposed roots? I find this scene rather pathetic, but it reminded me of the way that the deepest parts of us are exposed in the all-revealing light of God. Perhaps I’m stretching the analogy a little far……?

I also photographed this flower, below, three times within the space of half an hour – once in bright sunlight (bottom right), once when the sun was hidden by a cloud (bottom left) and once in black-and-white (top). Although I adore the deep red colour, I actually like the black-and-white shot too. The rose appears ‘flinty’ and ‘steely’. In fact, it seems stronger without colour.

Diffused light

Direct sunlight is harsh. Diffused light is gentle. It’s kinder in portraits, too, as every wedding photographer knows.

In the Old Testament, God was portrayed as inapproachable in his holiness. But then, in Jesus, that blinding light was diffused.

Jesus was identified by both his followers (John 6:69) and demons (Mark 1:24) as ‘the Holy One of God’. The Holy One of God walked amongst us two millennia ago, and perseveres with us still.

We flawed and fragile followers of Christ have the light of God within us. We radiate the light of Christ to those around us.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

1 Corinthians 2:6-7 NIV

Shadows

Shadows in a photograph add depth and direct our attention to the light. Shadows exist because an object is blocking the light.

Shadows are a frequent theme throughout the Bible too. They’re both positive and negative, depending on the context.

Shifting shadows

When portrayed negatively, it is the unreliable, short-lived and ever-changing nature of shadows which is emphasised.

Consider these two passages of Scripture:

Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
    mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
    their days are like a fleeting shadow.

Psalm 144:3-4 NIV

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 

James 1:17 NIV

Protection

On the other hand, ‘shadow’ in the Bible often points towards ‘protection’. The emphasis, of course, is on the object that provides such protection – a faithful, unchangeable all-powerful Presence.

Consider the following verse in which the writer was in a absolutely awful predicament. (The rest of the Psalm fleshes it out further.) Even as his very life was threatened, he turned his focus to his God, in whom he found refuge.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
    for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
    until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 57:1 NIV

What shadow do I cast?

Finally, I think of the exciting – though dangerous – days of the early church and the benefits that Peter’s literal shadow brought to those on whom it fell.

…. people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.

Acts 5:15 NIV

What shadow do I cast as I muddle my way through life? I was encouraged by the image of this butterfly – above – and the great shadow it is casting. It is such a frail little creature, and those wings are particularly flimsy.

I am frustrated by my finicky body … but that needn’t stop me from casting a decent shadow in life. In fact, perhaps our frail and fleeting existence serves to enhance the magnitude of the One whose light shines in our hearts and through these cracked ‘jars of clay’ (1 Cor 2:7).

Okay – so I am confusing my analogies here … but you know what I mean, right?

Hope

Life isn’t all hunky dory. Our world is broken and evil continues to wreak havoc in God’s good creation.

BUT there is hope that one day all will be as it should be. It’s not just a ‘maybe’ hope. It’s a certain hope for those of us who belong to Jesus.

One day, the Bible teaches us, all creation will be restored to our Creator. The book of Revelation has some magnificent prophecies about that day.

Will there be shadows in our heavenly home? There will be no more sun, no moon, and no night. Will there be stars?

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.

Revelation 21:23-26 NIV

As I cut and pasted these verses into this blog post, I considered replacing with ellipses the two lines about the nations’ glory and honour, since they’re not directly related to the point here. (An ellipsis its a punctuation mark consisting of three dots which show that something has been removed from the original ie ‘…’.)

But then I stopped myself. It’s not just me as an individual that lives in the light of God – in a sense now, and in fullness in the future. If I remove the sections about the nations, I’m behaving like an individualistic modern Westerner. That is is what I am, but perhaps that individual perspective isn’t the whole picture.

Anyhow, there you have it. A tremendous hope.

In summary

There is SO much more that I could write about light and shadows. However, this blog post is quite long enough. In summary:

1. Life isn’t always hunky dory.
2. ‘Walking in the light of God’ means acknowledging our faults, dealing with them as we are able, and pulling together with other parts of the community of God’s people.
3. Jesus is the only one through whom we can be reconciled to the All Holy God.
4. Shadows shift and fade but our God is eternal.
5. God offers us refuge in his ‘shadow’ even while chaos reigns around us.
6. Though we may be flimsy and mortal, like ‘jars of clay’, God shines his light through us to a broken world.
7. Our hope of eternity includes citizenship in the City of God … when life WILL be hunky dory!

All these deep and meaningful thoughts came from spending a few hours wandering about a gorgeous garden and old church. (Okay – a few of these thoughts were fleshed out further today and yesterday too, but all directly related to that day’s retreat.)

My frustrations with this fickle body remain but my focus is restored to a sensible place – the Father of Lights.

That’s the beauty of Visio Divina. It restores our focus.